by Jim Hoft
The Socialist Party of America announced in their October 2009 newsletter that 70 Congressional democrats currently belong to their caucus. This admission was recently posted on Scribd.com:
American Socialist Voter–
Q: How many members of the U.S. Congress are also members of the DSA?
A: Seventy
Q: How many of the DSA members sit on the Judiciary Committee?
A: Eleven: John Conyers [Chairman of the Judiciary Committee], Tammy Baldwin, Jerrold Nadler, Luis Gutierrez, Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, Linda Sanchez [there are 23 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of which eleven, almost half, are now members of the DSA].
Q: Who are these members of 111th Congress?
A: See the listing below
Co-Chairs
Hon. Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07)
Hon. Lynn Woolsey (CA-06)
Vice Chairs
Hon. Diane Watson (CA-33)
Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)
Hon. Mazie Hirono (HI-02)
Hon. Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Senate Members
Hon. Bernie Sanders (VT)
House Members
Hon. Neil Abercrombie (HI-01)
Hon. Tammy Baldwin (WI-02)
Hon. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Hon. Madeleine Bordallo (GU-AL)
Hon. Robert Brady (PA-01)
Hon. Corrine Brown (FL-03)
Hon. Michael Capuano (MA-08)
Hon. André Carson (IN-07)
Hon. Donna Christensen (VI-AL)
Hon. Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
Hon. William “Lacy” Clay (MO-01)
Hon. Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05)
Hon. Steve Cohen (TN-09)
Hon. John Conyers (MI-14)
Hon. Elijah Cummings (MD-07)
Hon. Danny Davis (IL-07)
Hon. Peter DeFazio (OR-04)
Hon. Rosa DeLauro (CT-03)
Rep. Donna F. Edwards (MD-04)
Hon. Keith Ellison (MN-05)
Hon. Sam Farr (CA-17)
Hon. Chaka Fattah (PA-02)
Hon. Bob Filner (CA-51)
Hon. Barney Frank (MA-04)
Hon. Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11)
Hon. Alan Grayson (FL-08)
Hon. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)
Hon. John Hall (NY-19)
Hon. Phil Hare (IL-17)
Hon. Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
Hon. Michael Honda (CA-15)
Hon. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-02)
Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Hon. Hank Johnson (GA-04)
Hon. Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Hon. Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)
Hon. Barbara Lee (CA-09)
Hon. John Lewis (GA-05)
Hon. David Loebsack (IA-02)
Hon. Ben R. Lujan (NM-3)
Hon. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Hon. Ed Markey (MA-07)
Hon. Jim McDermott (WA-07)
Hon. James McGovern (MA-03)
Hon. George Miller (CA-07)
Hon. Gwen Moore (WI-04)
Hon. Jerrold Nadler (NY-08)
Hon. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL)
Hon. John Olver (MA-01)
Hon. Ed Pastor (AZ-04)
Hon. Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Hon. Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
Hon. Charles Rangel (NY-15)
Hon. Laura Richardson (CA-37)
Hon. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
Hon. Bobby Rush (IL-01)
Hon. Linda Sánchez (CA-47)
Hon. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)
Hon. José Serrano (NY-16)
Hon. Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
Hon. Pete Stark (CA-13)
Hon. Bennie Thompson (MS-02)
Hon. John Tierney (MA-06)
Hon. Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)
Hon. Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Hon. Mel Watt (NC-12)
Hon. Henry Waxman (CA-30)
Hon. Peter Welch (VT-AL)
Hon. Robert Wexler (FL-19)
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Christians and Government
by Rep. Louie Gohmert
Judge not lest ye be judged. Be ye kind. Be a good Samaritan. Turn the other cheek. Love one another. These are only a few of the scriptures that are so often mentioned by professing Christians who are asking to be disqualified from jury duty for religious reasons.
As a district judge in Texas, I was told by such people that they could not ever be on a jury and judge a case because they were Christians. That is what caused me to wrestle with the issue as a Christian judge. Now that I am a member of Congress, this way of thinking still persists simply because people have been mis-educated as to the nature of our United States government.
Yes, I do believe that all of the verses so often cited are absolutely accurate and true. But, they are intended for use by INDIVIDUALS seeking to humbly imitate “the divine author of our blessed religion,” as George Washington put it. In fact, he added that we must do so in order to have any chance at having a “happy nation.” Romans 13:1-4 discusses the government’s role. “If you do evil, be afraid,” because the government is God’s minister to punish evil.
It is anticipated that in an orderly society, there must be a government of some kind. A good government keeps its country protected, fighting when necessary to do so, while also punishing evil conduct, and not punishing good conduct.
In Matthew, Jesus himself said if a person says “Raca” he must answer to the courts. His point was ultimately about God judging the heart. Nonetheless, he anticipated that there should be crimes for which the perpetrator must answer to governmental authority in order for life to proceed in avoidance of anarchy. The Old Testament reveals that God was going to provide that orderliness in Israel through judges until the Israelites demanded a king like everyone else had.
No question, even before the American Revolution, there were efforts at creating a government of the people. The American model contemplated in 1776 was different. As the founders projected, they had within their grasp what philosophers had only dreamed of. They had a chance, an opportunity if they would seize it, to govern themselves. Sure, England had a parliament, but it also still had a very powerful, unelected king. Yes, Rome had a senate during its greatest days, but they had an undemocratic Caesar.
The American founders’ dreamed of a government in which the PEOPLE themselves were exclusively the government. The PEOPLE would hire and fire servant workers to carry out their will. The PEOPLE would be the masters, and the hired representatives would be the SERVANTS—call them “public servants” if you like, but that is what they are supposed to be.
There is a reason the Latin words, “Annuit Coeptis” are on the Great Seal of our country directly above the representation of the all-seeing eye of God. When the founders adopted the Great Seal, which is found on the back of one dollar bills, they were so excited with what prayer had wrought, they wanted the notation that: “He (God) has smiled on our undertaking.” That is what it means.
One of the founders’ proudest accomplishments was a government that had so many checks and balances that it would be difficult to overstep governing boundaries. Since they did not trust the hired help to restrict themselves in making laws only as directed by the people who hired them, they created not one body of representatives, but two.
The second body would not be merely be socially elite figures, but would have full power to stop the larger body from making laws it did not agree with. In fact, the second body, we know to be the Senate, would be SELECTED by the state governments to insure that the larger body didn’t go off on a tangent and pass laws that would take away the states’ authority which was ultimately protected in the 10th Amendment.
If a federal senator ever did try to take away a state’s rights, that senator could be, would be, hauled back to the state and replaced by someone who was not complicit in big federal government usurpation. The founders’ idea was to keep as much power locally as possible while still allowing enough power at the federal level to increase chances of protecting all the states from enemies, both foreign and domestic.
Over the years, the method of selecting senators changed with the 17th Amendment, and the check on federal usurpation was gone. So the federal power jurisdiction exploded. There are some wonderful suggestions on how to get it back under control, but that is not the purpose in this article. The PEOPLE are still supposed to be the masters, and the elected representatives are supposed to be the servants.
Consider yourself as having started a major business, then you hire people to do a job at your business. Now picture those you hired not wanting to do the job for which you hired them, then hiring dozens more people and delegating to them their job and allowing them to make all the rules. Then those you have never met hire even more people with your money and they too do not produce anything.
Those newest people then are given the authority to tell everyone else what they can or cannot do. They begin bankrupting your business because you have more people delegating and regulating than you have producing. You would fire those original employees and get someone who would streamline the business and make it efficient and effective in doing what it was supposed to do—wouldn't you?
Well, the truth is that we have NOT done that. Instead, we have continued to hire people to run our country who continue to hire others who have made the government such a behemoth that it has taken on a life of its own. Not only have we not fired and rehired better servants, most of us do not even show up to make such hiring decisions on what we call “voting day.”
Most of us do not show up at the meetings to create an orderly society through punishment of those who do evil, called jury duty. Most of us also do not push to have our co-owners hire good people by endorsing and urging that good servants be hired, called supporting good candidates. And most people certainly don't dirty their hands when they could do the job better than those they hire, called running for office.
That’s right. YOU are the government! You are God’s minister to punish evil and reward good conduct. But, too many Christians have refused the figurative “sword” or the power that in this great country, this little experiment in democracy as a republic, is supposed to be held by YOU. You are the one God has ordained to run the country, but you haven’t even participated. So your employee staff has far too many who do not do what they were hired to do. And that means, for your inactions and omissions as an employer, you are getting exactly the kind of government you deserve. That is the old adage: “Democracy insures people will be governed no better than they deserve.”
That is also why we have penalties for societal good things like marriage (the income tax “marriage penalty”) and for 45 years we have rewarded having children out of wedlock instead of helping incentivise such women to finish their education. It is why we have a death tax that says you were too successful so we must take 55% away and give to the government. It is why people have in the past been threatened with removal from low-rent government housing for saving too much money for a down payment on a home. We punish good behavior too often and reward potentially hurtful conduct. It is also why we passed a Wall Street bailout to reward uncontrolled and irresponsible greed. It is also why TARP has not already been repealed, since it would mean admitting that maybe those who voted for it, including Republican leaders, had made a mistake.
So, as unpleasant as it may be, far too many of the employers, We the PEOPLE, have been lazy and apathetic which has caused we the people to get what we deserve. But it is high time the people of this country started deserving better. It is time that the PEOPLE as rulers in this land started exercising the God-given power in this country by voting, by serving on jury duty, filling appointed positions when called upon, by supporting the best candidates, and even by running for office. It is high time that we gave God something to smile about again. Just be assured, we get what we deserve in America for a government, for better or worse.
_______
Louie Gohmert, a Republican, has represented the First Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2005.
Judge not lest ye be judged. Be ye kind. Be a good Samaritan. Turn the other cheek. Love one another. These are only a few of the scriptures that are so often mentioned by professing Christians who are asking to be disqualified from jury duty for religious reasons.
As a district judge in Texas, I was told by such people that they could not ever be on a jury and judge a case because they were Christians. That is what caused me to wrestle with the issue as a Christian judge. Now that I am a member of Congress, this way of thinking still persists simply because people have been mis-educated as to the nature of our United States government.
Yes, I do believe that all of the verses so often cited are absolutely accurate and true. But, they are intended for use by INDIVIDUALS seeking to humbly imitate “the divine author of our blessed religion,” as George Washington put it. In fact, he added that we must do so in order to have any chance at having a “happy nation.” Romans 13:1-4 discusses the government’s role. “If you do evil, be afraid,” because the government is God’s minister to punish evil.
It is anticipated that in an orderly society, there must be a government of some kind. A good government keeps its country protected, fighting when necessary to do so, while also punishing evil conduct, and not punishing good conduct.
In Matthew, Jesus himself said if a person says “Raca” he must answer to the courts. His point was ultimately about God judging the heart. Nonetheless, he anticipated that there should be crimes for which the perpetrator must answer to governmental authority in order for life to proceed in avoidance of anarchy. The Old Testament reveals that God was going to provide that orderliness in Israel through judges until the Israelites demanded a king like everyone else had.
No question, even before the American Revolution, there were efforts at creating a government of the people. The American model contemplated in 1776 was different. As the founders projected, they had within their grasp what philosophers had only dreamed of. They had a chance, an opportunity if they would seize it, to govern themselves. Sure, England had a parliament, but it also still had a very powerful, unelected king. Yes, Rome had a senate during its greatest days, but they had an undemocratic Caesar.
The American founders’ dreamed of a government in which the PEOPLE themselves were exclusively the government. The PEOPLE would hire and fire servant workers to carry out their will. The PEOPLE would be the masters, and the hired representatives would be the SERVANTS—call them “public servants” if you like, but that is what they are supposed to be.
There is a reason the Latin words, “Annuit Coeptis” are on the Great Seal of our country directly above the representation of the all-seeing eye of God. When the founders adopted the Great Seal, which is found on the back of one dollar bills, they were so excited with what prayer had wrought, they wanted the notation that: “He (God) has smiled on our undertaking.” That is what it means.
One of the founders’ proudest accomplishments was a government that had so many checks and balances that it would be difficult to overstep governing boundaries. Since they did not trust the hired help to restrict themselves in making laws only as directed by the people who hired them, they created not one body of representatives, but two.
The second body would not be merely be socially elite figures, but would have full power to stop the larger body from making laws it did not agree with. In fact, the second body, we know to be the Senate, would be SELECTED by the state governments to insure that the larger body didn’t go off on a tangent and pass laws that would take away the states’ authority which was ultimately protected in the 10th Amendment.
If a federal senator ever did try to take away a state’s rights, that senator could be, would be, hauled back to the state and replaced by someone who was not complicit in big federal government usurpation. The founders’ idea was to keep as much power locally as possible while still allowing enough power at the federal level to increase chances of protecting all the states from enemies, both foreign and domestic.
Over the years, the method of selecting senators changed with the 17th Amendment, and the check on federal usurpation was gone. So the federal power jurisdiction exploded. There are some wonderful suggestions on how to get it back under control, but that is not the purpose in this article. The PEOPLE are still supposed to be the masters, and the elected representatives are supposed to be the servants.
Consider yourself as having started a major business, then you hire people to do a job at your business. Now picture those you hired not wanting to do the job for which you hired them, then hiring dozens more people and delegating to them their job and allowing them to make all the rules. Then those you have never met hire even more people with your money and they too do not produce anything.
Those newest people then are given the authority to tell everyone else what they can or cannot do. They begin bankrupting your business because you have more people delegating and regulating than you have producing. You would fire those original employees and get someone who would streamline the business and make it efficient and effective in doing what it was supposed to do—wouldn't you?
Well, the truth is that we have NOT done that. Instead, we have continued to hire people to run our country who continue to hire others who have made the government such a behemoth that it has taken on a life of its own. Not only have we not fired and rehired better servants, most of us do not even show up to make such hiring decisions on what we call “voting day.”
Most of us do not show up at the meetings to create an orderly society through punishment of those who do evil, called jury duty. Most of us also do not push to have our co-owners hire good people by endorsing and urging that good servants be hired, called supporting good candidates. And most people certainly don't dirty their hands when they could do the job better than those they hire, called running for office.
That’s right. YOU are the government! You are God’s minister to punish evil and reward good conduct. But, too many Christians have refused the figurative “sword” or the power that in this great country, this little experiment in democracy as a republic, is supposed to be held by YOU. You are the one God has ordained to run the country, but you haven’t even participated. So your employee staff has far too many who do not do what they were hired to do. And that means, for your inactions and omissions as an employer, you are getting exactly the kind of government you deserve. That is the old adage: “Democracy insures people will be governed no better than they deserve.”
That is also why we have penalties for societal good things like marriage (the income tax “marriage penalty”) and for 45 years we have rewarded having children out of wedlock instead of helping incentivise such women to finish their education. It is why we have a death tax that says you were too successful so we must take 55% away and give to the government. It is why people have in the past been threatened with removal from low-rent government housing for saving too much money for a down payment on a home. We punish good behavior too often and reward potentially hurtful conduct. It is also why we passed a Wall Street bailout to reward uncontrolled and irresponsible greed. It is also why TARP has not already been repealed, since it would mean admitting that maybe those who voted for it, including Republican leaders, had made a mistake.
So, as unpleasant as it may be, far too many of the employers, We the PEOPLE, have been lazy and apathetic which has caused we the people to get what we deserve. But it is high time the people of this country started deserving better. It is time that the PEOPLE as rulers in this land started exercising the God-given power in this country by voting, by serving on jury duty, filling appointed positions when called upon, by supporting the best candidates, and even by running for office. It is high time that we gave God something to smile about again. Just be assured, we get what we deserve in America for a government, for better or worse.
_______
Louie Gohmert, a Republican, has represented the First Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2005.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Remove Iowa Supreme Court Judges
by Rep. Steve King
For too long we left the Iowa judicial branch to its own devices. Just like the rest of government, it has grown out of control without the blessing of Iowans or the watchful eye of voters.
With the judicial retention vote looming, the debate has shifted into two separate, but vitally important topics. First is the Varnum v. Brien (Same-sex marriage) opinion that highlighted the Iowa Supreme Court’s willful determination to legislate from the bench. The other question is: what to do about it.
Actually, the lawless decision in Varnum can only be debated as to how far-reaching and limitless the current court could rule if unchecked. When the Iowa Supreme Court justices claim omnipotent power to imagine and confer constitutional rights that “were at one time unimagined” [Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W. 2d 862 (Iowa 2009). Page 15 of the opinion] it is time to remove them on that basis alone. It is obvious they feel empowered and will follow their whim in future decisions rather than the law. They have usurped the constitutional authority of the legislature and will do so at every notion until they are stopped by a vote of the people. To read their opinion brings one to the conclusion that these justices believe they have the authority to find the Constitution—unconstitutional.
On the matter of what the citizens of Iowa can do about their rogue judges, the retention vote is the only recourse. When judges usurp the letter of the Constitution and the Code of Iowa to suit their whim, they must be removed from office. The very fact that our Constitution calls for a retention vote on a general election ballot means the Constitutional intention is for the voters of Iowa to use their moral authority and judgment to check the runaway judicial branch.
However, judges do not want to acknowledge that fact. They encourage rubber-stamp acquiescence from the citizens they want to rule. Some days ago, Judge Robert B. Hanson, the creator of Iowa’s same-sex marriage status, revealed the political nature of our current judicial system when he called opponents of his ruling “misguided.” He continued to characterize a ‘no’ vote on judicial retention as “an abuse of the system.” The U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Iowa were both designed so that, if any branch of government gets out of hand, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
Elitism and judicial arrogance are on full display. They have for so long controlled their own hierarchy and culture that they openly consider our constitutionally granted right to vote our conscience and judgment as “an abuse of the system.”
Heretofore, judges have wrapped themselves in the cloak of jurisprudence. The average Iowan believes that judges carefully and scholarly study the Constitution, the statutes, and case law, then render a decision that is the objective result of jurisprudence. Some do. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told me that when he is unhappy with the effect of a decision he has made, he is confident that he has made the right legal decision. Not so with activist judges. They match their personal, political and policy preference with their conclusion, and then rationalize using creative and convoluted legal jujitsu to work backwards into their opinion. This is the stuff of Iowa’s judge made same-sex marriage policy.
Iowa law says that marriage is only between “a male and a female” [Iowa Code section 595.2(1)]. No judge can be allowed to remain on the bench who would turn thousands of years of law and human history on its head by discovering rights that “were at one time unimagined” in our Constitution. If Iowans read the decision, Varnum v. Brien, as I have, they will realize that their only recourse is to vote “NO” on all three Iowa Supreme Court judges who are on the back side of the ballot. I will vote “NO” on all three judges because it’s my sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and because it’s time to put the control of all three branches of government back in the hands of the people.
______
Rep. King was elected to Iowa's 5th District in 2002. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee and its Constitution and Immigration subcommittees.
For too long we left the Iowa judicial branch to its own devices. Just like the rest of government, it has grown out of control without the blessing of Iowans or the watchful eye of voters.
With the judicial retention vote looming, the debate has shifted into two separate, but vitally important topics. First is the Varnum v. Brien (Same-sex marriage) opinion that highlighted the Iowa Supreme Court’s willful determination to legislate from the bench. The other question is: what to do about it.
Actually, the lawless decision in Varnum can only be debated as to how far-reaching and limitless the current court could rule if unchecked. When the Iowa Supreme Court justices claim omnipotent power to imagine and confer constitutional rights that “were at one time unimagined” [Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W. 2d 862 (Iowa 2009). Page 15 of the opinion] it is time to remove them on that basis alone. It is obvious they feel empowered and will follow their whim in future decisions rather than the law. They have usurped the constitutional authority of the legislature and will do so at every notion until they are stopped by a vote of the people. To read their opinion brings one to the conclusion that these justices believe they have the authority to find the Constitution—unconstitutional.
On the matter of what the citizens of Iowa can do about their rogue judges, the retention vote is the only recourse. When judges usurp the letter of the Constitution and the Code of Iowa to suit their whim, they must be removed from office. The very fact that our Constitution calls for a retention vote on a general election ballot means the Constitutional intention is for the voters of Iowa to use their moral authority and judgment to check the runaway judicial branch.
However, judges do not want to acknowledge that fact. They encourage rubber-stamp acquiescence from the citizens they want to rule. Some days ago, Judge Robert B. Hanson, the creator of Iowa’s same-sex marriage status, revealed the political nature of our current judicial system when he called opponents of his ruling “misguided.” He continued to characterize a ‘no’ vote on judicial retention as “an abuse of the system.” The U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Iowa were both designed so that, if any branch of government gets out of hand, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
Elitism and judicial arrogance are on full display. They have for so long controlled their own hierarchy and culture that they openly consider our constitutionally granted right to vote our conscience and judgment as “an abuse of the system.”
Heretofore, judges have wrapped themselves in the cloak of jurisprudence. The average Iowan believes that judges carefully and scholarly study the Constitution, the statutes, and case law, then render a decision that is the objective result of jurisprudence. Some do. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told me that when he is unhappy with the effect of a decision he has made, he is confident that he has made the right legal decision. Not so with activist judges. They match their personal, political and policy preference with their conclusion, and then rationalize using creative and convoluted legal jujitsu to work backwards into their opinion. This is the stuff of Iowa’s judge made same-sex marriage policy.
Iowa law says that marriage is only between “a male and a female” [Iowa Code section 595.2(1)]. No judge can be allowed to remain on the bench who would turn thousands of years of law and human history on its head by discovering rights that “were at one time unimagined” in our Constitution. If Iowans read the decision, Varnum v. Brien, as I have, they will realize that their only recourse is to vote “NO” on all three Iowa Supreme Court judges who are on the back side of the ballot. I will vote “NO” on all three judges because it’s my sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and because it’s time to put the control of all three branches of government back in the hands of the people.
______
Rep. King was elected to Iowa's 5th District in 2002. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee and its Constitution and Immigration subcommittees.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Feingold Versus Johnson Debate - U.S. Senate Election - Wisconsin
by Thomas Sowell
One of a surprising number of old, well-established politicians being challenged in this year's election by some unknown newcomer is Senator Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. In a recent debate between Senator Feingold and his new challenger, businessman Ron Johnson, the difference between the old pol and new guy on the block stood out.
Feingold was clearly smoother and more glib-- and his arguments may have sounded more plausible to those unfamiliar with the facts. But what Ron Johnson said would have resonated better with those who did know the facts. How many people are in which category may determine the outcome of this election.
Senator Feingold wants Social Security kept pretty much the way it is. That would mean that there is not enough money to pay what is owed to the baby boomers who retire. Ron Johnson wants to keep Social Security as is for those who have already retired and for those approaching retirement years, but would not make it mandatory for younger people to join, if they don't want to.
Russ Feingold was on it in an instant, accusing his opponent of denying the benefits of Social Security to young workers and forcing them into the risky stock market for their retirement.
Although Senator Feingold cast himself in the role of a defender of Social Security, Ron Johnson pointed out that members of Congress like Senator Feingold had in fact undermined Social Security financially, by spending its money on other things.
This is in fact the dirty little secret about Social Security. In all the years when the money coming into Social Security exceeded the money being paid out in pensions, Congress simply spent the difference on everything from junkets to earmarks.The fiction of a Social Security "trust fund" was maintained by giving government bonds in exchange for the money taken. But these bonds changed nothing, since they were just claims on future taxpayers.
If these bonds had never been printed, future taxpayers would have been on the hook for future shortfalls. Neither the government nor anyone else can spend and save the same money.
But the question is: How well did Johnson explain it to people who don't know the facts? That is also something that could determine the outcome of this election.
As for the dangers of the stock market, it would take a very poor index mutual fund to do worse than Social Security, even if the investor retires when the stock market is down.
After Ron Johnson referred to having recently read the Constitution, Russ Feingold pounced and depicted that as showing that his opponent hadn't read the Constitution before. It was the kind of political trick that may impress people who don't pay close attention.But, to those who do pay attention to what goes on, the mention of the Constitution should remind them of the McCain-Feingold bill, which restricted free speech by some in the closing days of an election campaign. Just what part of "Congress shall make no law" abridging the freedom of speech did Senators Feingold and McCain not understand?
Apparently quite a lot. The Supreme Court has already declared part of that law unconstitutional.
The rationale for the McCain-Feingold law was to reduce the influence of money in political campaigns. But did you notice any reduction in the role of money after that law was passed and before it was declared unconstitutional? Feingold and McCain sold our birthright and didn't even get the mess of pottage.
Finally, there was that old favorite from the liberal playbook, "tax cuts for the rich." According to Senator Feingold, we cannot allow high-income people to continue to get the Bush administration tax cuts because the federal budget needs the money.
It has been shown so many times, in many administrations, as well as in other countries, that reductions in tax rates do not imply lower tax revenues. Often it has meant more tax revenues, when people change their behavior in response to tax cuts, and the resulting increase in economic activity generates higher incomes.It is "tax cuts for the economy," but that does not have the same political pizzazz as "tax cuts for the rich."
The question in Wisconsin, as elsewhere, is whether the voters want more political cleverness of the kind that has gotten this economy into its present predicament. Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.
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©Creators Syndicate
One of a surprising number of old, well-established politicians being challenged in this year's election by some unknown newcomer is Senator Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. In a recent debate between Senator Feingold and his new challenger, businessman Ron Johnson, the difference between the old pol and new guy on the block stood out.
Feingold was clearly smoother and more glib-- and his arguments may have sounded more plausible to those unfamiliar with the facts. But what Ron Johnson said would have resonated better with those who did know the facts. How many people are in which category may determine the outcome of this election.
Senator Feingold wants Social Security kept pretty much the way it is. That would mean that there is not enough money to pay what is owed to the baby boomers who retire. Ron Johnson wants to keep Social Security as is for those who have already retired and for those approaching retirement years, but would not make it mandatory for younger people to join, if they don't want to.
Russ Feingold was on it in an instant, accusing his opponent of denying the benefits of Social Security to young workers and forcing them into the risky stock market for their retirement.
Although Senator Feingold cast himself in the role of a defender of Social Security, Ron Johnson pointed out that members of Congress like Senator Feingold had in fact undermined Social Security financially, by spending its money on other things.
This is in fact the dirty little secret about Social Security. In all the years when the money coming into Social Security exceeded the money being paid out in pensions, Congress simply spent the difference on everything from junkets to earmarks.The fiction of a Social Security "trust fund" was maintained by giving government bonds in exchange for the money taken. But these bonds changed nothing, since they were just claims on future taxpayers.
If these bonds had never been printed, future taxpayers would have been on the hook for future shortfalls. Neither the government nor anyone else can spend and save the same money.
But the question is: How well did Johnson explain it to people who don't know the facts? That is also something that could determine the outcome of this election.
As for the dangers of the stock market, it would take a very poor index mutual fund to do worse than Social Security, even if the investor retires when the stock market is down.
After Ron Johnson referred to having recently read the Constitution, Russ Feingold pounced and depicted that as showing that his opponent hadn't read the Constitution before. It was the kind of political trick that may impress people who don't pay close attention.But, to those who do pay attention to what goes on, the mention of the Constitution should remind them of the McCain-Feingold bill, which restricted free speech by some in the closing days of an election campaign. Just what part of "Congress shall make no law" abridging the freedom of speech did Senators Feingold and McCain not understand?
Apparently quite a lot. The Supreme Court has already declared part of that law unconstitutional.
The rationale for the McCain-Feingold law was to reduce the influence of money in political campaigns. But did you notice any reduction in the role of money after that law was passed and before it was declared unconstitutional? Feingold and McCain sold our birthright and didn't even get the mess of pottage.
Finally, there was that old favorite from the liberal playbook, "tax cuts for the rich." According to Senator Feingold, we cannot allow high-income people to continue to get the Bush administration tax cuts because the federal budget needs the money.
It has been shown so many times, in many administrations, as well as in other countries, that reductions in tax rates do not imply lower tax revenues. Often it has meant more tax revenues, when people change their behavior in response to tax cuts, and the resulting increase in economic activity generates higher incomes.It is "tax cuts for the economy," but that does not have the same political pizzazz as "tax cuts for the rich."
The question in Wisconsin, as elsewhere, is whether the voters want more political cleverness of the kind that has gotten this economy into its present predicament. Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.
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©Creators Syndicate
Monday, October 11, 2010
Explaining Islam to the Islamists
by Gary Bauer
Liberal elites seem to relish trying to explain the meaning of belief systems to their most passionate adherents. Cafeteria Catholics like Nancy Pelosi has lectured Catholics and evangelicals, telling them that immigration amnesty is the “manifestation of our living the Gospels,” but that God gave women “free will” to abort unwanted children.
Leftists who spent the 1960s burning their draft cards and defaming American troops as baby killers lecture today’s soldiers that real patriotism means deserting the military and paying higher taxes.
And so it is with radical Islam. After each terrorist attack carried out in the name of Islam, liberal elites rush to assure the nation that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Koran promotes peace not violence.
John Brennan, the Obama Administration’s top counter-terrorism advisor, recently claimed that the word “jihad” has nothing to do with terrorism or holy war. Instead, he instructed, “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”
But the Left has had a difficult time convincing Christians that abortion is a Gospel value and that real patriots root for military defeat. Similarly, liberal elites’ denial that terrorism has anything to do with Islam is looking increasingly absurd. Two recent events underscore the Left’s deepening disconnect.
Last week I participated in a special edition of ABC’s program “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. The show was billed as a townhall discussion about Islam in America. The audience was stocked with people sympathetic to the Islam-is-under-assault narrative.
I knew how things would go as soon as Daisy Khan, wife of the would-be Ground Zero mosque imam, entered the stage, and the audience broke out in a raucous cheer. When Franklin Graham and I walked in, we were greeted with stony silence.
The audience was clearly not a random sample of residents of New York, a city with the world’s second-largest Jewish population and where, according to polls, 70% of residents oppose the Ground Zero mosque.
Representing Islam were three women (two Muslims and a New York leftist), who predictably argued that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and that American conservatives have created a climate of fear and hatred of Islam. All through the evening, “moderator” Amanpour sided with the Islamist apologists.
To its credit, ABC did invite one devout follower of Mohammed to join the discussion. Imam Anjem Choudary appeared via satellite, and he did a better job of explaining the reality of radical Islam in a two-minute rant than the rest of the panel did in two hours of arguing.
He called the panel of “moderate” Muslims “false Muslims,” saying of Khan, “This lady in your studio, she should be covering with the hijab. She’s obviously not practicing.”
Then Choudary contradicted the assurances of the panel’s “moderates” by saying, “If you’re a Muslim, you submit to the Sharia. We do believe, as Muslims, the East and the West will one day be governed by the Sharia. Indeed, we believe that one day, the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.”
Choudary’s “This Week” performance underscored that to truly understand the link of Islam to terror one needs to pay attention to its most ardent followers.
Last Tuesday, Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison for attempting to detonate a bomb in Times Square. In his remarks before the court, Shahzad was full of bluster, boasting about what he and his fellow jihadists have in store for Americans, promising that “the defeat of [the] U.S. is imminent.”
“Brace yourselves,” he warned, “because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.” Shahzad made it clear that his Muslim faith was what inspired him to terrorism. And he warned that our only hope of avoiding death was to convert to his faith.
But Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum went out of her way to explain to Shahzad that she knew his religion better than he did.
According to the New York Times, the judge, “repeatedly interrupted the defendant … to spar with him over his interpretation of the Koran, his invocation of a Muslim warrior in the Crusades and, above all, the relevance of any of it to the life sentence that hung over him like the dozen United States deputy marshals who guarded the prisoner in court.”
At one point, according to the Times, Shahzad said, “‘Blessed be’ Osama bin Laden, ‘who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade, and blessed be those who give him asylum.’” The article continued:
“The judge stopped him again. ‘How much do you know about Saladin, as you called him?’
“He is known in the Middle East as Salahuddin al-Ayubi, but commonly known in the West as Saladin, the Muslim leader who took Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. He is remembered in biographies as being a lover of peace who waged war reluctantly.
“‘He didn’t want to kill people,’ the judge told the defendant. ‘He liberated,’ Mr. Shahzad continued. ‘He was a very moderate man,’ Judge Cedarbaum said.”
Cedarbaum then admonished Shahzad to “spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”
Shahzad will have plenty of time to re-read what I presume is his already well-thumbed Koran. But I suspect his defiance won’t soften. As he told the judge, “If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system.”
The subtitle of the ABC’s “This Week” program was “Should Americans fear Islam?” We shouldn’t fear radical Islam, but rather defeat it. We should fear liberal elites whose self-deception about the true meaning of Islam seems to deepen with each Islam-inspired terrorist act.
______________
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Liberal elites seem to relish trying to explain the meaning of belief systems to their most passionate adherents. Cafeteria Catholics like Nancy Pelosi has lectured Catholics and evangelicals, telling them that immigration amnesty is the “manifestation of our living the Gospels,” but that God gave women “free will” to abort unwanted children.
Leftists who spent the 1960s burning their draft cards and defaming American troops as baby killers lecture today’s soldiers that real patriotism means deserting the military and paying higher taxes.
And so it is with radical Islam. After each terrorist attack carried out in the name of Islam, liberal elites rush to assure the nation that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Koran promotes peace not violence.
John Brennan, the Obama Administration’s top counter-terrorism advisor, recently claimed that the word “jihad” has nothing to do with terrorism or holy war. Instead, he instructed, “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”
But the Left has had a difficult time convincing Christians that abortion is a Gospel value and that real patriots root for military defeat. Similarly, liberal elites’ denial that terrorism has anything to do with Islam is looking increasingly absurd. Two recent events underscore the Left’s deepening disconnect.
Last week I participated in a special edition of ABC’s program “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. The show was billed as a townhall discussion about Islam in America. The audience was stocked with people sympathetic to the Islam-is-under-assault narrative.
I knew how things would go as soon as Daisy Khan, wife of the would-be Ground Zero mosque imam, entered the stage, and the audience broke out in a raucous cheer. When Franklin Graham and I walked in, we were greeted with stony silence.
The audience was clearly not a random sample of residents of New York, a city with the world’s second-largest Jewish population and where, according to polls, 70% of residents oppose the Ground Zero mosque.
Representing Islam were three women (two Muslims and a New York leftist), who predictably argued that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and that American conservatives have created a climate of fear and hatred of Islam. All through the evening, “moderator” Amanpour sided with the Islamist apologists.
To its credit, ABC did invite one devout follower of Mohammed to join the discussion. Imam Anjem Choudary appeared via satellite, and he did a better job of explaining the reality of radical Islam in a two-minute rant than the rest of the panel did in two hours of arguing.
He called the panel of “moderate” Muslims “false Muslims,” saying of Khan, “This lady in your studio, she should be covering with the hijab. She’s obviously not practicing.”
Then Choudary contradicted the assurances of the panel’s “moderates” by saying, “If you’re a Muslim, you submit to the Sharia. We do believe, as Muslims, the East and the West will one day be governed by the Sharia. Indeed, we believe that one day, the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.”
Choudary’s “This Week” performance underscored that to truly understand the link of Islam to terror one needs to pay attention to its most ardent followers.
Last Tuesday, Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison for attempting to detonate a bomb in Times Square. In his remarks before the court, Shahzad was full of bluster, boasting about what he and his fellow jihadists have in store for Americans, promising that “the defeat of [the] U.S. is imminent.”
“Brace yourselves,” he warned, “because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.” Shahzad made it clear that his Muslim faith was what inspired him to terrorism. And he warned that our only hope of avoiding death was to convert to his faith.
But Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum went out of her way to explain to Shahzad that she knew his religion better than he did.
According to the New York Times, the judge, “repeatedly interrupted the defendant … to spar with him over his interpretation of the Koran, his invocation of a Muslim warrior in the Crusades and, above all, the relevance of any of it to the life sentence that hung over him like the dozen United States deputy marshals who guarded the prisoner in court.”
At one point, according to the Times, Shahzad said, “‘Blessed be’ Osama bin Laden, ‘who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade, and blessed be those who give him asylum.’” The article continued:
“The judge stopped him again. ‘How much do you know about Saladin, as you called him?’
“He is known in the Middle East as Salahuddin al-Ayubi, but commonly known in the West as Saladin, the Muslim leader who took Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. He is remembered in biographies as being a lover of peace who waged war reluctantly.
“‘He didn’t want to kill people,’ the judge told the defendant. ‘He liberated,’ Mr. Shahzad continued. ‘He was a very moderate man,’ Judge Cedarbaum said.”
Cedarbaum then admonished Shahzad to “spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”
Shahzad will have plenty of time to re-read what I presume is his already well-thumbed Koran. But I suspect his defiance won’t soften. As he told the judge, “If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system.”
The subtitle of the ABC’s “This Week” program was “Should Americans fear Islam?” We shouldn’t fear radical Islam, but rather defeat it. We should fear liberal elites whose self-deception about the true meaning of Islam seems to deepen with each Islam-inspired terrorist act.
______________
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Why Pro-Abortion Is Anti-Science
by Nancy Pearcey
In their “Pledge to America,” Republicans are promising to repeal Obamacare, which has imposed taxpayer-funded abortion on the nation. A Quinnipiac University poll found that 67% of the American people do not want their tax dollars to pay for abortion. A poll of likely voters put the number at 72%.
Liberal counter-attacks are resorting to the old slur that Republicans are anti-science. The current issue of Nature bemoans the “anti-science streak on the American right.”
Now is the time to turn the tables and make the case that it’s the pro-abortion stance that is actually anti-science.
In the past, abortion supporters simply denied that the fetus is human: “It’s just a blob of tissue.” Today, however, due to advances in genetics and DNA, virtually no ethicist denies that the fetus is human—biologically, genetically, physiologically human. Even the arch-radical Peter Singer acknowledges that “the life of a human organism begins at conception.”
How do liberals get around that scientific fact? By denying the relevance of science.
Liberals argue that the sheer fact of being human does not confer any moral worth. Nor does it warrant legal protection. The turning point is said to be when an individual becomes a “person,” generally defined in terms of self-awareness, autonomy, or other cognitive capabilities.
This is called personhood theory, and it implies a dangerously divided view of the human being. On one hand, the physical body, knowable by science, is trivialized as a form of raw material that can be tinkered with, manipulated, experimented on, or destroyed with no moral significance. Human life is reduced to a utilitarian calculus subject only to a cost-benefit analysis.
On the other hand, the concept of personhood has been disconnected from the biological fact of being human, which renders it ultimately arbitrary. Ethicists disagree even on the point when personhood begins: Is it when the fetus starts to exhibit neural activity, or feels pain, or achieves a certain level of consciousness?
Or even after the child is born? According to British bioethicist John Harris, “Nine months of development leaves the human embryo far short of the emergence of anything that can be called a person.”
James Watson of DNA fame recommended giving a newborn baby three days of genetic testing before deciding whether the child should be allowed to live. Singer considers personhood a “gray” area even at three years of age. (After all, how much cognitive functioning does a toddler have?)
Each ethicist draws the line at a different place, according to his or her own personal vision and private values.
Pro-lifers have long been castigated for bringing private values into the public square. But actually it is the pro-abortion position that is based on merely personal views and values.
In First Things, law professor Stanley Fish sets the record straight: “It is pro-lifers who make the scientific question of when the beginning of life occurs the key one.” By contrast, “pro-choicers want to transform the question into a ‘metaphysical’ or ‘religious’ one”—using those terms to mean disconnected from any scientifically knowable reality.
Of course, people are much more than biological organisms. Yet biology gives an objective, empirically detectable marker of human status.
What this means is that pro-choicers have lost the argument on the scientific level—and so they are repudiating science. In the New York Times, Yale professor Paul Bloom informs us that abortion “is not really about life in any biological sense.”
Likewise Jennie Bristow, editor of Abortion Review, dismisses science as irrelevant: “With anti-abortionists pushing ‘scientific evidence’ on fetal viability, it is time to restate the moral case for a woman’s right to choose.” Her article is titled, “Abortion: Stop Hiding behind the Science.”
Liberals bring the same anti-scientific stance to other life issues, such as euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and genetic engineering. According to personhood theory, just being part of the human race is not morally relevant. Individuals must earn the status of personhood by meeting an additional set of criteria—the ability to make decisions, exercise self-awareness, and so on, depending on the ethicist setting the criteria.
Those who do not make the grade are demoted to non-persons, even though they are still biologically human.
The concept of personhood is so malleable that anyone at any stage of life could be demoted to the status of non-person and denied the right to live. Especially if their healthcare is determined by Obamacare boards whose members are committed to a liberal ideology. Sarah Palin’s phrase “death panels” is not misapplied.
If pro-abortionists want to commit intellectual suicide and deny scientific facts, that‘s their problem. But there’s no reason a civilized society should fund their anti-scientific outlook—or accept its inhumane consequences.
This is the third in a series based on Mrs. Pearcey's just-published book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.
_____
Nancy Pearcey is a bestselling author, editor at large of The Pearcey Report, and fellow of the Discovery Institute. She has published a new book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning. To inquire about media interviews, please contact Katie Morgan of the Pinkston Group at 703-260-1915 (email: morgan@pinkstongroup.com).
In their “Pledge to America,” Republicans are promising to repeal Obamacare, which has imposed taxpayer-funded abortion on the nation. A Quinnipiac University poll found that 67% of the American people do not want their tax dollars to pay for abortion. A poll of likely voters put the number at 72%.
Liberal counter-attacks are resorting to the old slur that Republicans are anti-science. The current issue of Nature bemoans the “anti-science streak on the American right.”
Now is the time to turn the tables and make the case that it’s the pro-abortion stance that is actually anti-science.
In the past, abortion supporters simply denied that the fetus is human: “It’s just a blob of tissue.” Today, however, due to advances in genetics and DNA, virtually no ethicist denies that the fetus is human—biologically, genetically, physiologically human. Even the arch-radical Peter Singer acknowledges that “the life of a human organism begins at conception.”
How do liberals get around that scientific fact? By denying the relevance of science.
Liberals argue that the sheer fact of being human does not confer any moral worth. Nor does it warrant legal protection. The turning point is said to be when an individual becomes a “person,” generally defined in terms of self-awareness, autonomy, or other cognitive capabilities.
This is called personhood theory, and it implies a dangerously divided view of the human being. On one hand, the physical body, knowable by science, is trivialized as a form of raw material that can be tinkered with, manipulated, experimented on, or destroyed with no moral significance. Human life is reduced to a utilitarian calculus subject only to a cost-benefit analysis.
On the other hand, the concept of personhood has been disconnected from the biological fact of being human, which renders it ultimately arbitrary. Ethicists disagree even on the point when personhood begins: Is it when the fetus starts to exhibit neural activity, or feels pain, or achieves a certain level of consciousness?
Or even after the child is born? According to British bioethicist John Harris, “Nine months of development leaves the human embryo far short of the emergence of anything that can be called a person.”
James Watson of DNA fame recommended giving a newborn baby three days of genetic testing before deciding whether the child should be allowed to live. Singer considers personhood a “gray” area even at three years of age. (After all, how much cognitive functioning does a toddler have?)
Each ethicist draws the line at a different place, according to his or her own personal vision and private values.
Pro-lifers have long been castigated for bringing private values into the public square. But actually it is the pro-abortion position that is based on merely personal views and values.
In First Things, law professor Stanley Fish sets the record straight: “It is pro-lifers who make the scientific question of when the beginning of life occurs the key one.” By contrast, “pro-choicers want to transform the question into a ‘metaphysical’ or ‘religious’ one”—using those terms to mean disconnected from any scientifically knowable reality.
Of course, people are much more than biological organisms. Yet biology gives an objective, empirically detectable marker of human status.
What this means is that pro-choicers have lost the argument on the scientific level—and so they are repudiating science. In the New York Times, Yale professor Paul Bloom informs us that abortion “is not really about life in any biological sense.”
Likewise Jennie Bristow, editor of Abortion Review, dismisses science as irrelevant: “With anti-abortionists pushing ‘scientific evidence’ on fetal viability, it is time to restate the moral case for a woman’s right to choose.” Her article is titled, “Abortion: Stop Hiding behind the Science.”
Liberals bring the same anti-scientific stance to other life issues, such as euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and genetic engineering. According to personhood theory, just being part of the human race is not morally relevant. Individuals must earn the status of personhood by meeting an additional set of criteria—the ability to make decisions, exercise self-awareness, and so on, depending on the ethicist setting the criteria.
Those who do not make the grade are demoted to non-persons, even though they are still biologically human.
The concept of personhood is so malleable that anyone at any stage of life could be demoted to the status of non-person and denied the right to live. Especially if their healthcare is determined by Obamacare boards whose members are committed to a liberal ideology. Sarah Palin’s phrase “death panels” is not misapplied.
If pro-abortionists want to commit intellectual suicide and deny scientific facts, that‘s their problem. But there’s no reason a civilized society should fund their anti-scientific outlook—or accept its inhumane consequences.
This is the third in a series based on Mrs. Pearcey's just-published book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.
_____
Nancy Pearcey is a bestselling author, editor at large of The Pearcey Report, and fellow of the Discovery Institute. She has published a new book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning. To inquire about media interviews, please contact Katie Morgan of the Pinkston Group at 703-260-1915 (email: morgan@pinkstongroup.com).
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